How to get actual proxy credentials in Windows 7?

Question

I'm currently working on an corporate environment, full of limitations, on a non-admin windows 7 workstation, and I don't have access to the corporation user support for a few days.

More importantly, I'm connected to my corporation's network under my Active Directory account, and I can acces the internet through a pre-configured proxy. I have the url, I have the port number (through the Internet Options -> LAN Settings menu). Cooncerning the internet access, everything works fine.

The problem is that I'm working on the maintenance of the code of an application whose libraries are remotely aggregated with Maven. Maven needs the internet to downloaded specified libraries from a public repository. The proxy can be set in a settings xml file where i can set the proxy host url, the port number, the non-hosts urls and the user's credentials.

I assumed that I could use the AD credentials : Does not work (Maven explicitely logs "Not Authorized by proxy"). I tried then to look into my user account stored credentials manager, but I didn't noticed any credentials related to a proxy. There may be some limitations due to the fact I'm not admin on my workstation. I also tried not to use some credentials, thinking that the proxy may not need any user authentication : didn't work.

I'm quite struggling with that question because applications that can detect system proxy setting manage to connect, and thy must use some credentials.

So I have two questions :

• Does the OS provide any kind of default credentials when nothing is specified (I assumed the AD credentials, but i could be something else I forgot to think about) ?
• Is there any other way to get the credentials used by the OS than the one listed above (the user account's credential manager) ?

Thanks for any help !

Answer 1

The proxy rules will run against the User principle that's requesting the web traffic, not necessarily the user that's logged in. E.g. If i run IE as a different user (shift+right click), the proxy will apply against this user that's requesting the web traffic as opposed to the user that's just simply, logged in. Think of it as more as a request for data.

Because proxy scopes can be applied at user, group or 'global' level, it's difficult to tell whether Maven has been configured for 'allow' in your business proxy given the message: 'Maven not authorised by proxy'. Therefore, this could just mean you are not part of the 'Allow Maven' proxy group or just simply, no rules for Maven have been setup at all. This will need to be investigated by your IT team.

If there is a config file for proxy settings for Maven, then Maven will most likely be using a service to tap into this file and use these credentials to authenticate with the proxy to pull the library you need. Therefore, it just needs an account setting up in this file that's authroised by the proxy to grab the data. Otherwise, the only work around would be to not go through the proxy.

In summary for your questions:

1) The proxy rules are always applied against the user principle thats requesting the web data, if no 'run as' or superceeding service is performing the authentication, then yes it will be your AD account. 2) I presume by this you are looking for further user accounts to try out to see if they are authenticated for Maven web traffic, no. This would need to be provided to you by the IT team or whoever has access to AD & Proxy.